Search form

MTV Correspondent to Speak at Doane in October

October 2, 2006

Doane students will meet the live version of an MTV presence when Gideon Yago speaks on campus Tuesday, Oct. 10.

Called "the face of current events to millions of young adults," Yago has spent six years as a writer and correspondent for MTV News and a contributor to CBS News. Doane's Hansen Leadership program sponsors his presentation "They're Doing What? Politics, Cool and the Youth Vote," Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in Heckman Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Yago will make a classroom visit and dine with students during his time on campus.

Yago was a Columbia University student when he first appeared on MTV as a winning contestant on Idiot Savant, a pop-culture game show. A few years later, when MTV recruited for its "Choose or Lose" campaign to educate young voters, he was among college students chosen to report on the election and related student issues. After Choose or Lose, Yago remained an MTV News correspondent.

He was the host and head writer for the MTV News series "The Wrap" on MTV2 and has produced and hosted award-winning MTV specials on the war in Iraq, 9/11, the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, AIDS and sexual health, drugs, natural disasters and hate crimes. His most recent work includes reports from New Orleans immediately after the levees broke and a survey of the damage of the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir.

A writer for The Village Voice described him as "MTV's secret weapon, a sweet-faced twentysomething coaxing politicians to heed the youth vote. A cult figure among the under-35 set."

Yago has interviewed President George W. Bush, Senator John Kerry, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator John McCain, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, Bill Gates and numerous musicians and Hollywood stars. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone,Spin and Vice.

For more information, contact Jim Hermelbracht, Director of the Zenon C.R. Hansen Leadership Program, at 402.826.8271 or contact him at jim.hermelbracht@doane.edu.